No, if he wanted to get back to Chicago and be assured of his family’s safety, he’d need to have Ronnie put out to pasture. Because the more he thought about it, the more David began to suspect that none of this was an accident, that there’d been a plan in place to get Sal in trouble, that preyed on his desire for a better life, a dangling carrot that moved him out of the shadows (where he frankly enjoyed working) and into what amounted to a business meeting with the FBI. Sal Cupertine should have died that day. Four against one. But once he was out on the streets, Ronnie must have moved on to plan B.
Jewish custom said to meet all sorrow standing up, and that’s what David was trying to do. Ronnie clearly wanted him gone, which meant there was something he didn’t want him to learn, something that would eventually matter enough to David that he’d kill his own cousin.
Problem was that Ronnie was nearly impossible to get to. He was never alone, even out in public, kids on the street running up to get their pictures taken with the used-car salesman/gangster from the TV. And no one local would be dumb enough to take the contract, not even one of the scads of crooked Chicago cops, half of whom were on Ronnie’s book, anyway.
David was getting way ahead of himself, indulging in the same fantasy he’d been having for months now. He needed to handle Las Vegas first, then worry about Chicago. Except for one thing: He needed to get some money to Jennifer, let her know somehow he was still alive without tipping off the feds. Ah, the feds. Jeff Hopper, another dead man that was suddenly alive. Another person he needed to handle.
A brown Southwest plane flew overhead, and David traced its path as it descended down toward McCarran Airport. Every forty-five minutes, the same brown plane would pass overhead, either coming or going, David wondering if anyone ever bothered to look at what was really underneath them: a fetid sunburnt bowl of dust in the middle of nothing. Just another Pleasure Island, filled with liars and thieves.
Money. That was the first order of business. He had to figure out a way for Jennifer to get a good sum, in case Ronnie cut her off, because now that Monte was dead, he’d be tightening the noose in order to keep her quiet.
Problem was, he didn’t quite know how to get her money in a way that wouldn’t be tracked. This would take some finessing.
What David also knew for certain was that Dr. Kirsch needed to disappear, though David couldn’t very well make it look like an accident, not with Rachel aware of. . something. And what did she know? That he’d had plastic surgery? What did that prove? Nothing. Nothing at all.
Except Rachel Savone knew her husband was in the Mafia. And now she thought she knew something about him, something that wasn’t possible to prove, because there was no David Cohen. He didn’t exist. Yeah, he had all the right papers, but how far would those papers take him? If Bennie wouldn’t let him go inside a casino for fear of the facial recognition cameras, he sure wasn’t about to go into the airport or even out of Las Vegas.
David needed to have a conversation with Rabbi Kales. A candid, open conversation where David made it clear that he had no problem killing him unless Rabbi Kales let him know what Bennie had on him. And then, if need be, he’d handle Rachel, too. He wasn’t about to let Bennie know about her plans, however, because then it would be an order to make her disappear. No, first, he’d make sure the funeral home was willed properly, see that it was left to the temple, not to Rachel, and if that meant he did it with a gun to Rabbi Kales’s head, then so be it.
But how long would it take for the feds to start sniffing up the freeway from the strip club and into Bennie’s personal life? How long before they saw how much money he’d donated to the temple? How long before there was a subpoena to look at the temple’s books? David figured that Bennie was smart enough to avoid that sort of impropriety — he was sure of it — but that didn’t mean the feds wouldn’t want to eventually sit down and talk to him just to make Bennie sweat.
David went inside the house and came back out a few minutes later with a yellow legal pad, a ballpoint pen, a glass of Macallan 30 year, and his copy of the Torah. He made a list of all the people he needed to deal with locally — including, eventually, the bouncers who’d beaten the tourist in the first place, since they were out on bail pending trial, and who knew what they might say — then ripped off the page and made a list of all the people in Chicago he needed to deal with, with Jeff Hopper’s name on the top. He tore that page off the pad and folded both it and the Las Vegas list together and shoved them in the Torah, so he’d have easy access to them, a reminder as to why he was doing all this in the first place.
He then made a short list of all the materials he’d need: guns, some decent knives in case he decided to go that route, steel-toe boots, gloves, bleach, some S.O.S pads, hollow-point bullets, a length of rope. . It had been a long time since he’d put together a decent murder kit, so he had to remind himself of all the important instruments he liked to keep nearby.
Which reminded David of one other important detail. He went back inside and came back with the bottle of Macallan, the Yellow Pages, and the telephone. He poured himself another drink and flipped through the phone book, finally landing on the listing for building supply outfits. The first one listed was A & A Construction Supply, which David thought was cheating, since he was sure there was no one there actually named A or A, so he scanned down the page until he landed on Kerby’s Machine Tools Direct & Rental. The store was located out on the other side of Craig Road, about ten miles away. There wasn’t much development out that way yet — a casino, of course, and an overpriced movie theatre, but no decent houses, which was perfect, since no decent houses meant the Jews weren’t thick on the ground. Last thing David wanted was to run into one of the Israelites while he was busy doing his other job. He’d practically screwed the pooch with Rachel today, and that was when he was at least quasi-prepared.
Kerby’s answered on the first ring.
“Yes,” David said, “I’d like to rent a portable foundry.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Rural southern Illinois had become one blurred grain silo and field of dirty snow. Jeff Hopper sat in the backseat of a black Chevy Suburban driven by Senior Special Agent Kirk Biglione, marking time by the distance between cities he’d never visit — Pontiac to Normal to Lincoln and beyond. A person could hide out here forever.
“You comfortable back there, Hopper?” Biglione asked. Jeff didn’t respond. “Be happy you’re not in cuffs,” Biglione said, which made the guy sitting next to him up front, an agent named Lee Poremba whom Hopper worked organized crime with years previous in Kansas City, turn and glare. Turns out no one found Kirk Biglione amusing.
They’d been driving south on I-55 for nearly five hours, headed for Kochel Farms, located between Divernon and Farmersville, the middle of the middle of nothing. The plan was to meet up with the U.S. Marshals to serve a warrant right around kickoff of the Super Bowl, hopefully ensuring that no standoff would occur, the FBI always preferring to do their raids on days when they knew family would be around — Thanksgiving, Christmas, Super Bowl Sunday — or when they knew even the worst dirtbag on the planet was likely to be home sitting on his sofa. Not that Jeff believed they’d roll up on the place and find the farm’s owner eating chips and salsa with Sal Cupertine.